ME – Parties accuse each other of distorting votes on sex offender law

Article
November 1, 2006

PORTLAND, Maine –Republicans and Democrats in the Maine House of Representatives are accusing each other of intentionally misleading voters over a new state law that increases penalties for sex offenders who abuse young children.

Both parties are crying foul over fliers circulated by legislative candidates that purport to explain how their opponents voted on “Jessica’s Law.” They’re accusing each other of selectively using roll call votes to misrepresent their opponents’ position.

At a news conference in Portland, Assistant House Republican Leader Joshua Tardy of Newport charged that at least 10 Republican representatives who voted against one version of the bill have been targeted as soft on crime in Democratic mailings.

Canada, NY – New York State seeks to overturn sex offender’s serve-in-Canada sentence

Article
April Lindgren, CanWest News Service
Published: Wednesday, November 01, 2006

TORONTO – New York state prosecutors will be in court Nov. 8 seeking to change a controversial order that allows a convicted American sex offender to serve out his sentence with his family in Canada in lieu of jail on the other side of the border.

”This decision sets a terrible precedent and it also has significant practical difficulties,” Ontario Attorney General Michael Bryant told reporters Tuesday. ”Enforcing a court order from another country is difficult, if not impossible, besides the fact it has obviously caused an international incident.”

Bryant said his office has been informed the Cheektowaga Court in Erie County will be petitioned to change the sentence handed down to Malcolm Watson. Watson, 35, an American citizen with landed immigrant status in Canada, pleaded guilty last week in a Buffalo, N.Y., court to sexual abuse in the third degree and endangering the welfare of a child. The charges arose from a relationship the teacher at an all-girls school in Buffalo was having with a 15-year-old student.

IN – Sex offender working at haunted house

Article

A man convicted of attempted child molesting and working at a local haunted house has been arrested for failing to register as sex offender with the Vanderburgh County Sheriff’s Department.

Chief Deputy Eric Williams said Kenneth Streeter, 47, is in the Vanderburgh County Jail with bond set at $10,000. The Sheriff’s Department received a tip last week from a woman who said Streeter has been living in Evansville since at least late July, according to the affadavit supporting the warrant obtained for his arrest. The manager at the House of Lector haunted house confirmed to officers that Streeter had been working there since Oct. 26. The Sheriff’s Department confirmed with the Indianapolis Police Department that Streeter had not lived there for at least three months.

NY – Registered sex offender arrested again

Article
11/1/2006 12:15 PM
By: Staff

A registered sex offender is back behind bars after what he thought was a chat with a 14-year-old girl on the internet turned out to be a Massena Police investigator.

Police arrested 24-year-old Brian McElhearn of Ogdensburg Tuesday after allegedly sending a nude photo to the undercover investigator.

McElhearn is charged with Disseminating Indecent Material to Minors and is locked up in St. Lawrence County Jail on five-thousand dollars bail.

WI – Sex offender sentenced

 Article

JUNEAU -  A man who was found guilty of attempted child exposure to sexual activity and attempted child exposure to harmful description was sentenced to eight months in jail and three years probation Wednesday.

Thomas I. Koch, 52, 604 E. Oak St., Juneau, allegedly engaged in Internet conversations in a romance chat room with what he thought was a 13-year-old female, but the person talking to him was actually an undercover special agent with the Department of Justice Division of Criminal Investigation.

GA – Lawmakers upset with sheriffs’ exemptions to sex offender law

Article

ATLANTA Several Georgia lawmakers are upset with recent decisions by sheriffs to allow six elderly and disabled men to temporarily sidestep the state’s new sex offender law. But the legislators are not calling on the state’s attorney general about the matter.

Instead, they say the Legislature, not local law enforcement officials, should ultimately decide whether exceptions should be made for the men.

Senator John Wiles of Marietta said it is not up to a federal judge or a lawyer or a sheriff to choose whether to interpret the law. Wiles was one of the co-sponsors of the sex offender restrictions passed last session with widespread, bipartisan support in the House and Senate.

AZ – Teacher arrested for alleged sexual abuse and kidnapping

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PHOENIX Phoenix police say they’ve arrested and booked an elementary school teacher for sexual abuse and kidnapping.

The alleged victim is a nine-year-old girl.

The suspect is identified as 34-year-old Darrell Begay.

He’s a teacher at Lowell Elementary School.

AL – Former Opelika cop guilty sexual abuse

Article
By Alan Riquelmy
Staff Writer

A former Opelika, Ala., police officer was found guilty today of inappropriately touching a 13-year-old girl.

Everett Keith Preer, 36, who last lived in Opelika, was found guilty of second-degree sexual abuse in Lee County Circuit Court after the jury returned for deliberations for the trial’s second day this morning, said District Attorney Nick Abbett.

“Our job is to prosecute,” Abbett said. “I feel like justice was done.”

Australia – Parents jailed for incest porn

Article

A Victorian mother, father, and stepfather have been jailed for sexually abusing their own children aged two to 15 and for making child pornography.

The Victorian County Court’s heard the children were made to perform sexual acts on the adults as well as each other and were subjected to various forms of penetration by the adults.

The 36-year-old mother of three of the children pleaded guilty to charges relating to her oldest son and daughter and was sentenced to a maximum of eight years in jail with a minimum of four.